Are Online Retailers Prepared for a Christmas surge? - Edge ...
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Research:
Are Online Retailers
Prepared for a
Christmas surge?
Introduction
It’s been encouraging to hear that many UK A retailer cannot afford to have a slow
online retailers have just completed their or unresponsive website – especially as
most successful quarter – and that can be customers are demanding immediate response
put down to the coronavirus pandemic and times and the majority are happy to move on
the reticence of many people to venture out. to a competitors’ website if kept waiting.”
Econsultancy reported that 77% of British
consumers now do at least part of their online
shopping online. This figure is up from 61% in
2019. Edge Testing Solutions
Against this backdrop, and in the run up to Established in 2007, the company has grown
the traditionally busiest period for retailers, fast to become the UK’s largest independent
Edge Testing Solutions (Edge) set out to software testing company. Working across
test the websites of 258 leading UK online a number of industry sectors, the company
retailers. A renowned testing specialist, Edge has a strong pedigree within the retail
used industry-standard tools to see how sector, where clients have benefited from
retailers’ websites are holding up to increased performance, functional, usability, automated
traffic by determining factors which lead to and managed testing services to ensure
better customer experience and conversions, correct functioning of backend IT systems/
including: load time, navigation tools, image infrastructure and e-commerce websites.
quality and broken links. From a testing and retail perspective, Edge is
in an excellent place to undertake this study.
Sharon Hamilton, MD of Edge Testing
commented on the research:
“The findings of the study make for
fascinating reading. In these challenging times
e-commerce is a vital business model not just 1
https://econsultancy.com/stats-roundup-coronavirus-impact-on-
for success but also currently, for survival. Key marketing-ecommerce-advertising/
surprises were around performance. 2
2019 TOP500 UK Internet Retailing ranking
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Focus Key findings
During the research, Edge focused on the Daily repeated tests were conducted on the
following benchmarks: websites from 11-18 August 2020. Below we
present the findings for the key criteria we
Speed discussed above.
How quickly does the website respond
when you click on it? Which are within Speed
acceptable and measurable baselines and Do the websites meet the ‘need for speed’? In
which performed poorly? Poor performance our tests 16% (42) of landing pages took on
equates to lost customers and lost average ten seconds to fully load with three
revenue. With Black Friday and Christmas sites taking longer than 20 seconds. Longer
approaching all retail websites have a opening times should be of concern as they
strong need for speed. are likely to cause visitors to move on to
another site.
Ease of navigation
Which retailers had put in the effort to The results when using some common speed
produce a seamless and stress free shopping tests were as follows:
experience and which had turned their - Yahoo! Speed Test: 89% of sites scored
websites into an obstacle course. lower than a ‘C’ grade
- Google Speed Test: 85% scored ‘C’ or lower,
Image quality with 51 of the tested sites scoring a poor ‘F’
Poor imaging impacts the brand in - YSlow Speed Test: 66%
question’s credibility, the length of time a - PageSpeed Test: 62%
customer stays on the website, conversion
rates for sales, and the level of repeat visits. The average first page load speed was seven
Websites that use large, poorly optimised seconds.
images also typically take longer to load.
Navigation
Functional vs Non-Functional links Encouragingly, using the System Usability
A surprising number of websites do not Scale, we found the majority (98%) of the
perform ongoing housekeeping with ‘dead sites’ navigation features to be satisfactory,
links’ to obsolete pages, other brand achieving from A to C grades. Only four
websites and external websites. This can retailers did badly, all scoring 67.5, a
lead to customer frustration as they are concerning the usability scale score gradings
guided down time-wasting blind alleys. gives them a D grade (poor).
So we measured the quantity of working
and non-working links for each website
tested.
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Image quality Analysis of the Findings
Only 9% of tested websites displayed images Considering how important a retailer’s website
to an ‘A’ grade standard, according to the is to its business success, there were some
Website Speed Test tool. Others featured surprising scores for some of the UK’s most
images that were of lower quality. popular and widely used brands. When one
In particular: considers that a typical customer wants
- 185 sites had average image weights under a seamless, straightforward yet enjoyable
0.5 MB shopping experience, some retailers appear
- Five websites including two of the major to be almost going out of their way to
supermarkets had image weight scores of compromise the customers’ buying experience.
four MB and above.
Loading speed
Functioning links Was a key area requiring improvement with
On average, across all websites tested, 3% of 16% of the UK’s leading online retailers taking
links were not functioning. However on 7% of an average 10 seconds to fully load. Even
sites, more than 10% of links were found to with multiple visits the average loading time
be non-functioning. was seven seconds. What happens when peak
retail traffic kicks in for the Black Friday and
Security Christmas online shopping periods? At what
Of the 258 websites tested only five totally point will a potential customer’s patience break
blocked all the measurement tools employed and a competitor’s website opened instead?
by Edge with an additional two blocking all
but one of our toolsets. Navigation
Does not appear to be a problem with most
websites allowing the customers to move freely
through the various browse and sales paths.
The statement is true as 98% of the websites
tested, received a grading of A-C. From our
testing, we found that fashion/footwear
retailers had the highest website usability
scores, with 75% making the top 20 scores.
Image quality
Provided interesting feedback. Low image
weight is good because large images slow
down web pages creating less than optimal
user experience. Those with low image weight
have optimised their images either a plugin
or script, which in turn speeds up the load
time of the page. The top 20 retailers with
the lowest image scoring all use high quality
and multiple images to sell their goods and
services. However, so did the bottom 20
which included two supermarkets, two high
street chemists, a book retailer and several
popular high street clothing stores.
Weighty images hit load times hard and when
you multiply this by many thousands of users
that’s a lot of people sat in limbo waiting to shop.
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Additional Comments Ensuring a website remains relevant and From a security aspect we were able to deploy operating efficiently is achieved through good all our tools against most websites – the website management and housekeeping. This tools deployed were not intrusive or malicious means ensuring all links function correctly however our activities did reflect the excellent and that obsolete links are removed promptly. cyber resistance of a small number of Only six websites scored a perfect 100% retailers’ websites tested. The remaining 95% including Ikea and Pets at Home with another of websites allowed our tools to analyse their 155 scoring 99%. At the other end of the websites and this may be a potential cause for scale one of the three worst offenders was concern. a major supermarket with a score of 65.3%. One of the primary global online retailers operating in the UK also only managed to score 86.1%. Conclusion Sharon Hamilton, MD of Edge Testing concludes: “During a time where consumers are shifting to online shopping more than ever before, Edge’s research reveals that retailers still have room for improvement, with slow speed, poor image quality and broken links threatening user experience. Many of the poorer performers were well known brands who cannot afford to let a poor performing website impact forthcoming sales.” www.eurofins-digitaltesting.com DigitalTesting@eurofins.com
Edge’s Recommendations
Considering the findings, Edge recommends
that retailers undertake a:
Load and performance review of their Separate review and potentially performance
e-commerce capability test of order fulfilment
Which would include analysing: Many retailers may have highly effective
- Current website performance capability and well maintained websites however the
(to provide a benchmark) weak link may be the internal or external
order fulfilment mechanism. Edge works
- Measuring scalability – most retailers with several order fulfilment companies
should have the necessary mechanisms in who now find themselves with a drastically
place to auto-scale their websites however increased level of demand through the impact
auto-scale effectiveness also depends of COVID-19 on e-commerce. One company
on the overall architecture of the web stated that ‘COVID-19 has upped the ante
supporting systems so every week is now like Christmas of old
so what will Christmas 2020 be like?’ With
- Web site load balancers plus all other companies such as Yodel announcing 3,000
business logic sitting behind the servers new jobs ready to cater for the Christmas
2020 buying surge the supporting order
- Ascertaining ability to manage forecasted fulfilment systems must also be able to
traffic spikes (incorporating forecasted manage previously unseen levels of orders.
traffic for seasonal retail campaigns plus
taking into consideration the increased Housekeeping initiative to minimise the
traffic COVID-19 has driven to e-commerce) number of broken links
This would be a straightforward exercise
- Identifying supporting server capability/ to undertake and there are various tools on
capacity the market which can speed up the review
process. A well maintained website performs
- Speed and agility – the ability to change faster and provides a smoother shopping
the web site contents with the latest value experience for the customer.
propositions and services without impacting
performance Review of the websites PenTest capability to
withstand malware and cyber attacks
- Identifying what is slowing down the Pen testing should be considered an ongoing
website’s performance (e.g. weighty images, activity rather than a set of snapshot tests.
ineffective caching approach, poor coding As websites are amended, expanded and
techniques, lack of compression techniques) include additional linkages, new cyber risks
and weaknesses can be introduced. Therefore
- Apply the necessary changes and ongoing Pen Testing as a business as usual
refinements to optimise their websites process should be undertaken.
performance capability.
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RANK COMPANY
1 GABOR
2 CLAS OHLSON
3 MICROSOFT
4 APPLE
5 ZALANDO
6 LONG TALL SALLY
7 THOMAS SABO
8 LOUIS VUITTON
9 IKEA
10 VICTORIAN PLUMBING
11 JACK AND JONES
12 THORNTONS
JEWELLRY & WATCHES (5%) CONFECTIONARY (5%) TECHNOLOGY (15%) 13 LLOYDS PHARMACY
14 NOVATECH
COSMETICS (5%) FOOTWARE (10%) FASHION (40%) 15 BURBERRY
16 BEAUTY BAY
PHARMACY (5%) HOME IMPROVEMENT (15%) 17 VICTORIA’S SECRET
18 THE NORTH FACE
19 WHISTLES
20 GANT
Top 20 retail sites results
Edge analysed all the scores from the various tests deployed. The following table highlights the top
20 retailers who Edge considers are the frontrunners in terms of having fast, intuitive and well-
functioning websites. Leading the field is footwear retailer Gabor, scoring a total of 563.2 points
out of a possible 600, where 100 points were awarded for fully loaded time, system usability scale,
average image weight, functioning links, Yslow score and PageSpeed score.
Out of the top 20, fashion retailers dominated, with 40% gaining a top slot, including Long Tall
Sally, Louis Vuitton, Jack & Jones, Burberry, Victoria’s Secrets, The North Face, Whistles and Gant.
Technology and home improvement followed with 15% each, including retailers Microsoft, Apple,
Novatech and Clas Ohlson, Ikea and Victorian Plumbing.
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Loading speed test
A faster site means a better visitor experience, Analyse website end- to-end functions using
higher ranking in search results and lower performance testing
bounce rate, people expect fast loading times To identify and breakdown the steps in
today: the functional journey and highlighting
- 47% of customers expect a chosen site potential blockages.
to load in less than two seconds.
- 40% will abandon it entirely if it takes During our testing of the in scope websites
longer than two seconds. we found that the top 20 sites ranged from
0.8 to 2.8 seconds to load the landing page.
To enhance e-commerce website performance While the slowest 20 sites loaded in 13.2 to
the retailer in question should consider: 42.1 seconds. The average time to load among
sites tested was seven seconds.
Optimising images
As eCommerce sites are generally filled RANK COMPANY TIME (SEC.)
with high quality images and videos, it is 1 CLAS OHLSON 0.8
crucial to optimise images to accelerate the 2 MASSIMO DUTTI 0.9
retailers storefront. This can be achieved by 3 APPLE 1.1
compressing images before uploading – this 4 GABOR 1.5
should be an automatic activity during daily 5 BONPRIX 1.6
builds. 6 FREEMANS.COM 1.6
7 DUNE LONDON 1.7
Minimise CSS, JavaScript and HTML 8 EBUYER.COM 1.7
This should also be standard practice 9 KALEIDOSCOPE 1.9
as it reduces wasted space for content 10 MICROSOFT 2.1
transmission. 11 LONG TALL SALLY 2.1
12 WILKO 2.2
Housekeep redirects 13 HOME BARGAINS 2.3
Websites should be regularly scanned for 14 BEAUTY BAY 2.4
old redirects that lead to pages deleted a 15 THOMAS SABO 2.4
long time ago. This is a good practice after 16 JACK WILLS 2.6
switching or updating the site and can be 17 GRATTAN 2.6
automated as an activity. 18 USC 2.7
19 SMYTHS TOYS 2.7
Introduce a Content Delivery Network (CDN) 20 LAKELAND 2.8
This is a concept most relevant to UK
retailers deploying a global reach. A CDN
provides a globally-distributed network of
proxy servers which cache content, such as
web videos, images or other bulky media
and there are umpteen options to choose
from. Basically the web browser will get
the image from a nearby-cache (UK) rather
than fetching it from afar (for example
a US server). CDNs accelerate content
delivery, reduce individual server load,
enable audience segmentation (i.e. allow
the retailers website to behave differently
by country or region) and reduce network
latency.
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DigitalTesting@eurofins.comGoogle speed test
Google’s speed test revealed that 85% of
retailers’ sites scored ‘C’ or lower with 51 of
the tested websites receiving an ‘F’. As many
sites returned low scores, the suggestions
above for website performance improvement
should be considered. When profiling a web
Yahoo speed test page with PageSpeed, it evaluates the page’s
89% of sites were lower than a ‘C’ grade from conformance. Google provides an overall
the Yahoo! speed test. YSlow analyses web score out of 100 for the website tested, based
pages and their speed based on Yahoo’s rules on several performance optimisation best
for high performance web sites. Marked out practices.
of 100, YSlow extracts data from the page
and generates a score for each rule, which PageSpeed Insights scores are calculated via
produces the overall grade. The results were Lighthouse, Google’s open-source, automated
that 65 websites received a Fair (C) grade and tool for improving the overall quality of web
94 a Poor (D) grade. pages.
RANK RETAILER SCORE RANK RETAILER PERCENTAGE
1 GABOR 95 1 FURNITURE VILLAGE 98
2 HARRODS 95 2 CHARLES TYRWHITT 96
3 CLAS OHLSON 94 3 CLAS OHLSEN 96
4 VICTORIA’S SECRET 92 4 GAP 95.8
5 ZALANDO 92 5 MARISOTA 94
6 HARVEY NICHOLS 89 6 WHISTLES 92
7 MICROSOFT 88.8 7 LLOYDS PHARMACY 91.6
8 SCREWFIX 88 8 JOULES 91
9 RUSSELL AND BROMLEY 87.4 9 VICTORIA’S SECRET 90
10 LOUIS VUITTON 85.8 10 LOOKFANTASTIC 89.9
11 L’OCCITANE 85 11 NOTONTHEHIGHSTREET 89
12 VICTORIAN PLUMBING 85 12 HUGHES ELECTRICAL 87.2
13 THOMAS SABO 85 13 SELFRIDGES 87
14 HOLLAND AND BARRATT 85 14 ITS 86.4
15 EBUYER.COM 82.6 15 DUNELM 86
16 WAITROSE 82.4 16 DUNE LONDON 86
17 LLOYDS PHARMACY 82.2 17 ICELAND 85.8
18 WHISTLES 82.2 18 SCREWFIX 85.6
19 APPLE 82 19 THOMAS SABO 84.6
20 REEBOK 82 20 THE FRAGRANCE SHOP 84.4
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DigitalTesting@eurofins.comNavigation test RANK RETAILER PERCENTAGE
Better navigation means more sales and a 1 ADIDAS 92.5
better bounce rate. If a potential customer 2 NIKE 92.5
cannot find what they want, they will leave, 3 ZARA 90
as opposed to a well organised site, where 4 EBAY 90
they can locate products they might want 5 FARFETCH 90
easily and can then progress to make a 6 APPLE 87.5
purchase. 7 PARTYCITY 87.5
The System Usability is a simple, ten-item 8 RADLEY 87.5
scale giving a global view of subjective 9 SELFRIDGES 87.5
assessments of usability. For our testing we 10 ACCESSORIZE 87.5
created 10 questions and a grading system. 11 BURBERRY 89
From this our results concluded that over two 12 LOUIS VUTTON 87.2
thirds (68%) received a ‘B’ grade equating to 13 MILLETS 87
good navigation. The average score was just 14 BOOTS 86.4
under 80%, but top scorers reached past 90% 15 OFFICE 86
and the lowest scorers was 67.5%. 16 SCHUH 86
17 HUGO BOSS 85.8
18 MAINLINE MENSWEAR 85.6
19 MICROSOFT 84.6
20 REISS 84.4
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digitaltesting@eurofins.comImage quality test Edge Testing’s researchers used a Website Speed Test to provide a ranking for a variety of image aspects and categories. Using a grade range of A-F, it rates the image format, fit, compression rate, colour space and colour depth. When it comes to image weight, bigger is not always better, as uploading multiple large images can affect site performance because when a browser first loads a page, it downloads all of the page’s content. Therefore, pages with large image weight will load slowly, it is recommended that pages are kept under 5 MB. Companies need high quality images on their sites to get more views and a higher search Broken links test result ranking. Users will also stay on site Broken links send visitors to a webpage that for longer and bounce less frequently. Most no longer exists. If a customer encounters companies scored a ‘B’ on the Website Speed one, they are more likely to move on to Test Tool’s image analyser, so their sites had another better functioning site. If customers fairly well optimised images. leave a site quickly after visiting it, the site’s The websites we tested had an average image search result rankings will also be damaged. weight of 0.417MB, but some were as high The Dead Link Checker tool showed us that as 4.2MB, about 10 times larger than the most companies have few broken links on average. Low image weight means faster their sites – the average being that 97.1% of loading times, but could also mean poor links are functional. The top 20 companies quality images. with most functioning links are: RANK RETAILER WEIGHT (KB) RANK RETAILER PERCENTAGE 1 FURNITURE VILLAGE 4 1 PETS AT HOME 100 2 THOMANN 5 2 TOOLSTATION 100 3 PAVERS 7 3 HAWKSHEAD COUNTRY WEAR 100 4 TOPPS TILES 7.4 4 IKEA 100 5 MOULTON BROWN 8 5 MAJESTIC WINE 100 6 GEAR4MUSIC 8 6 T J HUGHES 100 7 BRAVISSIMO 9.5 7 EBUYER.COM 99.98 8 SALLY 10.5 8 FREEMANS 99.95 9 LEGO 11 9 BRAVISSIMO 99.95 10 SPORTSBIKESHOP 11 10 SKECHERS 99.95 11 THOMAS SABO 12 11 SPORTSBIKESHOP 99.95 12 FIGLEAVES.COM 12 12 HOUSE OF FRASER 99.90 13 RICHER SOUNDS 13 13 WATERSTONES 99.90 14 PETSAT HOME 14 14 APPLE 99.90 15 SKATEHUT.CO.UK 15 15 GRATTAN 99.90 16 FASHION WORLD 16 16 LITTLEWOODS 99.90 17 MATALAN 17 17 MICROSOFT 99.90 18 NOTONTHEHIGHSTREET 18 18 OCADO 99.90 19 WAYFAIR 19 19 OVERCLOCKERS UK 99.90 20 EBAY 20 20 PARTYCITY 99.90 www.eurofins-digitaltesting.com digitaltesting@eurofins.com
Methodology
Each test was conducted five times on each
site from 11 - 18 August 2020 and an average
for each test was taken to ensure more fair
and reliable results.
Speed Image quality
To test load times GTmetrix was used to We analysed images on the tested sites using
combine the 27-page speed recommendations the Website Speed Test tool; the data this tool
and 19 Yslow recommendations of Google and provides is determined by how the images on a
Yahoo, respectively. The load time of the main website are displayed, considering format, fit,
– landing – site page was also tested. We compression, colour space and depth. These
came up with these results: factors are combined to give a grade, from A-F.
GRADE PAGE SPEED (GOOGLE) YSLOW (YAHOO) GRADE NUMBER OF WEBSITES PERCENTAGE
A 9 5 A 21 8.5
B 30 22 B 177 72.2
C 44 65 C 46 18.8
D 79 94 D 1 0.5
E 34 54 E 0 0
F 51 11 F 0 0
Navigation Broken links
To find the ease of navigation on each site Finally, we checked for any broken and
we used the System Usability Scale. This is a dysfunctional links within each site utilising
simple, ten-item attitude Likert scale which the Dead Link Checker tool to scan the sites
we used to quantify the website interface and and confirm that any links found do exist
functionality. and have a destination. 92% of websites we
tested showed fewer than 10 in 100 broken
GRADE NUMBER OF WEBSITES PERCENTAGE links, with the majority – 72% of all assessed
A 78 30 sites having less than 1 in 100 links broken.
B 175 68
C 4 2
D 0 0
F 0 0
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digitaltesting@eurofins.comWhy work with us?
About Edge Testing - Eurofins Digital Testing was the first test lab to
Edge Testing is part of Eurofins Digital be approved by USB-IF and is the only laboratory
Testing a global leader in independent Quality authorized to carry out such testing in the EMEA
Assurance, (QA), testing and cyber security region
for software systems, content and devices
with operations in Belgium, Hong Kong, - Custom testing: in addition to full testing we also
the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and the offer pre-certification or selective testing
USA. We help businesses in media, fintech,
energy, governmental and other industries - Debugging: we can help you identify and correct
assure quality in their digital transformations problems
towards Industry 4.0.
- Our large pool of devices available for
We are a trusted provider in a broad spectrum interoperability testing
of quality solutions covering: managed
test services & augmented test resourcing, - Flexible scheduling and testing: you may attend
industry recognized advisory & training, the test
including Eurofins Academy, lab-based testing or ship the product to us for testing
services & infrastructure, test automation
& conformance testing services & tools, - Extensive range of additional testing and
comprehensive cyber security services & consulting services
tools.
Eurofins Digital Testing is part of Eurofins
Scientific, a Life Science testing group which
has more than 800 laboratories in over
50 countries and over 48,000 employees
worldwide. Founded in 1987, Eurofins is the
global leader in bio-analysis, with a level
of expertise that makes it the first call for
businesses around the world.
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